Electromechanical sensors and actuators are important for many areas in industry such as vibration sensing and damping, tactile sensors for robotics, touch sensitive screens etc. The conventional materials used for these devices are based on piezoelectric ceramics such barium titanate, lead zirconium titanate etc. These materials have to be processed at high temperatures and are not easy to fabricate in different shapes especially in thin flexible sheets. These ceramics are brittle and cannot be easily mounted on curved surfaces.
There have been some efforts made in the past to synthesize piezoelectric polymers which are mainly based on fluorine containing polymers. Some reports are available in literature (H. S. Nalwa, Ferroelectric Polymers, Marcel Dekker, N.Y. , 1995, ch. 3) which indicate that under certain conditions of high orientation and high voltage electric field treatment these fluoro polymers give piezo-electric effect. These types of polymers are not conducting and have many drawbacks for applications in devices such as very high resistivity causing high input impedance, difficult processing techniques, requirements of very high electric fields (>106 V/m) which cause hazards etc. In order to overcome these drawbacks, semi-conducting polymers can offer a good alternative. However, there is no prior art for the preparation of conducting/semi-conducting polymers having high piezosensitivity.